


The Angel Whisperer, Part 2: The Colour Out Of Space

by rudolphsb9



Series: The Angel Whisperer [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, LITERALLY, Lovecraftian Monster(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2018-12-25 11:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12035196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudolphsb9/pseuds/rudolphsb9
Summary: It's Rastan's first trek in the TARDIS, and following a tour of the best and brightest in the universe, he asks for something a little more quaint. This isn't quite what he had in mind.





	1. Chapter One

“So,” the Doctor said as he slammed down levers and mashed buttons. “Where to next on the sightseeing tour of the universe? Black holes? Dwarf stars? Oh! There’s a star made entirely out of diamond!” Rastan watched him from a chair at the edge of the console area, his knees tucked up to his chest and his arms wrapped around him. “And, there’s another star that’s nothing but platinum! And there’s a nebula of…antimatter, at the edges of the universe!”

“Is there like…a chill setting?” Rastan asked, after he was sure he could get a word in edgewise. “A planet where you need a vacation from your vacation?”

“Oh? Tired already?”

“Not tired, just…need a rest, is all.”

“Preference with regard to the presence of Weeping Angels?” Rastan smiled a little, in spite of himself. The man was an absolute lunatic, and a sheer genius. It was hard not to like him at least a little, in Rastan’s point of view.

“I’d figure your ship would avoid them like the plague if at all possible.”

“Oh believe me, sometimes she does.” He flipped another lever. “There’s a beach planet we can go to for a bit. And a canyon planet if you’re more of a hiking sort. A forest planet, oh, and a planet full of giant rocks and Zen gardens! What do you think?”

Rastan hummed a little. “Thinking…not a lot of noise or people. Out of the way.”

“I’ve got it!” the Doctor said, jamming another button. He threw another lever and after a few moments the TARDIS made a grating, wheezing noise and landed. Rastan stood almost at once now, trusting it was safe to do so, and he stepped out the doors onto a grassy field draped over hills. In the distance trees stretched out at as far as the eye could see, and deep valleys punctuated by the sound of softly trickling water embraced shadow like a long-lost friend.

“New England, late nineteenth century,” the Doctor said as he emerged from the TARDIS. “Not really what I was going for, I admit.”

“Does this always happen?”

“Oh, all the time. But, as long as we’re here, we may as well have a look around.” He glanced at Rastan’s clothes. “Unless you want to change first.”

“Usually it takes care of itself,” he replied. “Unless you’ve got other ideas.”

“No, just…usually my companions like to change. I guess it’s the dresses.”

Rastan smirked a little. “I suppose, if it helps to blend in.”

“Just don’t overdo it. Here.” The Doctor held up his sonic screwdriver and pressed a button. Rastan listened to its humming for a moment, and the fabric on his body shifted around before settling again. He clapped his companion on the shoulder. “There, a nice church look. It is Sunday, after all.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course.” The Doctor pocketed the screwdriver again, and the started off in a seemingly random direction.

“So…New England. What’s that about?”

“Usual stuff: Boston Tea Party and American Revolution, all those really old colleges, American sports teams…”

“So, not a lot going on, then.”

“Yeah. But, seems perfect, yeah?” He looked at Rastan and smiled, and they found a narrow dirt track, two pairs of grassless lines as if carved by a wagon. They followed it, and a light breeze played over the land, rustling the grass and gently greeting them both.

Rastan looked out over the hills, and spotted a curious patch in one of the valleys down below. It was rather a huge expanse of grey ash that covered an old, disused road and expanded some way beyond that. Near the center was a small smattering, as if of stones. Perhaps it was a fire, he thought to himself, but something about the sight troubled him. Instinct? He looked at the road ahead and followed the Doctor, and he found himself thankful that it was still daylight.

***

The town, they quickly learned by talking to one of the locals as he walked into the post office, was called Arkham. The Doctor presented himself as such, with Rastan as his apprentice, and asked for a place to grab a bite to eat. The man pointed them down the road to an inn. The Doctor thanked him, and they continued on toward it. Rastan caught snatches of conversation in passing, mostly about local gossip, but something stuck out to him.

“…says the oak trees glow in the night…” said one woman, to laughter.

“Did you hear that?” the Doctor asked him.

“About the trees?” Rastan replied, and the Doctor nodded with a smile. “Good, it’s not just me.”

“It’s not just me, either, but I’m alright with that.”

They walked into the inn, where the Doctor asked the keeper for a table for two and some beer to start with. Rastan shrugged it off and looked around at the assorted people in the inn, chatting and laughing. “…sounds just like that queer old Ammi Pierce! I swear that boy!”

“Which boy?” Rastan couldn’t help but ask. Then he caught himself. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear, and we’re new in town, just passing through.”

The man shook his head. “Just Cromwell’s boy. You can almost pity him, it’s too young for him to start going mad.”

“And who is Ammi Pierce?”

“The town kook, he is,” the man said with laughter. “Lives out on the edge of town alone. He’s been bent crooked for years.”

“About what?” the Doctor asked from behind Rastan, and the man looked up and blanched a little, as if embarrassed.

He stood. “M-my apologies, sir.”

“Oh, no, don’t apologize. We’re just two travelers, and like my friend I couldn’t help but overhear what you were talking about.”

“Just the…the old country talk, it’s nothing, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “Folk here…they tend to go mad.”

“Go mad, you say?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s nothing to trouble yourself with, really.”

The Doctor nodded and bid farewell to the man, turning to Rastan. “He’s not talking,” he said softly as they walked over to their table.

“Maybe there’s something in the water,” Rastan said.

“Perhaps.”

“I don’t know if it’s related, but there’s a huge splotch of land in the wilderness here, just nothing but ash. Like a fire recently carved through it.”

“But you don’t think it’s a fire, do you,” the Doctor said.

“Well, I don’t really know. It kind of unsettles me.”

“Trust your instincts, as they say.” He scraped some butter on one half of an American biscuit, and he took a bite out of it. Rastan sipped from a bitter cup of coffee, before cringing and setting it down again.


	2. Chapter Two

Georgie Cromwell lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling and doing everything in his power not to stare out the window at that evil light outside. He had been living at the edge of Arkham with his mother and grandmother, doing the heavy chores, earning some money for them, and mostly keeping his head down since his father’s suicide. But he couldn’t not talk about the trees, the unholy, ungodly trees. The oaks had gotten huge and fat, and glowed in the dark. Their limbs twisted and swayed at night, even when there was no wind. The still nights scared Georgie the most.

That was a still night.

He knew he should try to sleep, as he had much work to do the next day with the woodcutting and so forth, but try as he might, he failed. Perhaps it was the knowledge that they were out there, those horrible glowing trees, or the looming sense that they would possess or kill him if he got too close in the wrong kind of light. Whatever it was, he felt he needed to be alert at all times as far as that hideous display was concerned. It took all of his willpower to close his eyes and turn onto his side, facing away from the window where, if he tried, he could see the light in the darkness. He did his best not to think about it, or the strange dreams it promised. Instead he just tried to sleep.

***

Rastan also lay awake, listening to the Doctor’s snoring. He sat at the desk in the room, leaning on the windowsill and staring out over the landscape. It was a really odd landscape to be sure. It _looked_ like he thought New England should’ve looked at about this time, but there was something slightly…odd about it. Some of the townsfolk were out and about, there was something of a prostitution industry but mostly the rich folk of the town were driving home from something or another in new automobiles. He caught snatches of chatter, all giddy and half-drunk, and none of it seemed to mean anything.

His eyes wandered to a tall oak tree near the center of town, visible from the inn. In the daylight it looked like any other ordinary oak tree, if a bit big. He hadn’t paid it much mind. But in the night, it almost seemed to glow. He squinted at it. It wasn’t a bright light, and it wasn’t a color he particularly recognized (though any glowing tree was noteworthy, given his recent travels), and it imprinted itself on his mind almost on sight. He studied the tree intently, tracing the lines of the trunk and the branches. The branches seemed to move. Was it windy out? Rastan hummed and gently opened the window in front of him. The air outside was still. So why were the branches moving?

Rastan stood and walked over to the Doctor, gently shaking him awake. The Doctor snorted a little and hummed, sitting up slightly. “You need to see this,” he said simply. The Doctor stood and followed him, shrugging on his dressing gown and leaning over the windowsill. Rastan pointed to the oak tree in the middle of town. “There.”

The Doctor straightened a moment and put on a pair of reading glasses, before leaning back in. “Are…are those branches…?” Rastan merely nodded and made a small affirmative noise. The Doctor straightened, as if filled suddenly with new energy. “Right then. Come on.”

“What? Are we going out there?” Rastan asked, turning to face the Doctor as he walked back over to his clothes.

“Yeah!”

“Why?”

“To investigate!”

“You are having way too much fun.” The Doctor merely smiled in response. Rastan focused a little so that the telepathic device on his shoulders could adjust his clothing properly. He glanced at himself, finding his appearance not much changed, but it did look a little less…formal. He followed the Doctor out of the inn, blessedly only a three-story affair, and onto the street in the cold, still air. The Doctor walked briskly and with purpose, like he had a spring in his step that was incongruous with his age. Rastan had to jog to keep up with him. The Doctor stopped suddenly in front of the oak tree, planted near town hall.

They both stared up at the branches, dancing in the still night air and reaching upward. “That’s strange,” the Doctor noted. He whipped out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the trunk of the tree, as high up as he could reach, before scanning the screwdriver and readings it seemed only he understood. “Now that’s very strange.”

“What’s goin’ on?” Rastan asked after a moment. By now they had attracted some notice, a couple of old folk were mumbling about “What the devil is that?” and “The Devil is right, that is no godly thing!” It took Rastan a moment to realize they were referring to the tree.

The Doctor merely pocketed the sonic device and said, “I’m not sure,” before turning to some of the men gathered here. “Excuse me,” he said, loudly enough to get their attention. The chatter stopped and they looked at him. “Excuse me, thank you. Now I presume by your reactions that this,” he gestured to the tree, “is a recent development?” There was a general murmur of agreement. “Precisely how long has this been going on?”

“Oh, since the strange days, Doctor,” one of the men said, to general chastisement from the others.

“No, wait,” the Doctor said, holding up a hand for silence. “Wait a minute.” He turned to the speaker. “What strange days?” The speaker merely shook his head.

“He…he means…it all happened forty years ago, thereabouts,” said another, older man. Then he, too, shook his head. “No one knows quite what happened. Old Mr. Pierce will tell anyone who’ll listen but his head is bent. Listening to him will do you no good, I quite assure you.”

“Ammi Pierce?” Rastan asked. The old man nodded. “Is that to do with that dead patch out there?” Rastan pointed behind him. “That looks like it’s burned out, but nothing’s grown back.” There was no answer, so Rastan accepted that as a ‘yes.’

“Where can we find this Mr. Pierce?” the Doctor asked.


	3. Chapter Three

Ammi Pierce lived in the woods, before it appeared to become impossible. He seemed to live far away from both the town of Arkham itself and the rural farms that dotted the land. Many of those farms were abandoned, which Rastan and the Doctor both noted as they walked up to the place. It was large and old, like it had been there since the founding of the nation, if not before. The Doctor pounded fiercely on the door a few times, and a ragged old voice answered from within: “I’m comin’, I’m comin’, hold your horses, will ya?!”

A few moments later the door opened, revealing a stooped figure in a crisp white shirt and suspenders, and going bald. What little hair he had left was snow white and almost lost in his milky complexion. “Are you Ammi Pierce?” the Doctor asked.

“Aye, and who’re you?”

“I’m the Doctor, this is my apprentice, Rastan.” Rastan waved and mustered a small smile. “We’re passing through, and couldn’t help but notice a few things.”

“The trees! The damn trees! Isn’t it?”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, where is my manners? Come in, come in.” The old man stepped aside and gestured for the two travelers to enter. “The trees glowed in the dark,” he said. “Everythin’ did.”

“What happened?” Rastan asked.

“Perhaps you should start from the beginning,” the Doctor suggested.

“There was a meteorite…” he began.

***

Both Rastan and the Doctor marveled at the tale Ammi told them. A meteorite fell to earth near the Gardner place, “where the blasted heath be now,” and baffled scientists and professors who studied it. But that wasn’t all. There was a strange color associated with it, a hue unlike anything anyone was familiar with. It was in the spectrum of the meteor (along with its other strange properties, like slowly disappearing in air, and destroying glass beakers along with itself), it was in a globule they found in the center, and it had slowly begun to permeate everything around it. It started innocently enough, at first. Fruits and vegetables looked phenomenal, enhanced, even, but were unfit for human consumption. But then things got weird.

Everything around the place glowed that strange color in the middle of the night, some said trees swayed even when there was no wind, and animals started losing their minds. The animals, Ammi said, cracked first. But about the same time, Nahum Gardner’s wife had cracked like an egg, right down the middle, and was eventually locked in the attic. There were the alterations to the local wildlife (and later, the domestic stock). That spring everything grew back with that weird color, and more tasteless than ever. Water went bad, then milk, temporarily; all the while the Gardner family was collectively going insane.

One of the sons went mad, and was also locked in the attic alongside his mother. Eventually the youngest son disappeared, and then shortly after, the last living son. Death had claimed the mad boy. By then, Ammi said he had visited the house the second to last time. The house had fallen into disarray, everything around it was grey and brittle, and Ammi implied the fate of Gardner’s wife. He stated in no uncertain terms the fate of Mr. Gardner.

Ammi had taken it upon himself, he said, to go to town and alert the proper officials as to the passing of everyone. Three officers, the coroner, the medical examiner, and the veterinarian had accompanied him to study the place and try to figure out what had happened. The truth was they had found more questions than answers. Two of the sons were found in the well, along with a collection of small animals and game, and a pile of ooze. Dust was gathered from either Nahum Gardner or the earth around him (if it could be called that anymore), and were found to have that same spectrum as the meteorite, but lost this property and were just a combination of phosphates and carbonates. No one examined the well water. The men gathered in the living room of the old house as night wore on to discuss matters, but none could come to a satisfying conclusion.

As night wore on, the place began to glow. First they noticed the glow outside, around the well. Light shone out, in the strange color Ammi had come to dread. The baffled men could do nothing but stare and speculate. The trees swayed in the darkness, and were later shown to have points of the strange light at the tip of each branch and twig, like a swarm of sick fireflies. Light shot out of the well in a manner light does not usually do, and then gradually the woodwork in the house glowed, as it had done earlier that day when Ammi was there alone in the final moments of Nahum’s life. The men had to flee for their lives, and Ammi led them through a back way up to the back lot. The color (or thing) spilled out of the well and shot toward the sky, all flying upward and taking every organic thing in the immediate vicinity with it—primarily the wooden house, but sparing the horses. After a moment it was done, and for the most part they all set off home.

Ammi had seen something else: a small patch of color feebly rising from the earth, trying to follow, but being unable to. For this, he needed to be accompanied right back to his kitchen, and he had never gone near the place since.

***

“So why haven’t you left this place?” the Doctor asked, when Ammi finished. Ammi merely shook his head, as if to say he didn’t know.

“Nahum said it’s a force, compels ya to stay,” he replied. The Doctor and Rastan glanced at each other.

“Mr. Pierce,” the Doctor asked after a moment. “Has anyone said anything between forty-four years ago and now about the blasted heath?”

“They says everything!”

“Examples?”

“It spreads, ya see, bout an inch a year. Animals is still makin’ them queer tracks in the snow. The snow don’t stick around ‘round there, ya see, and ain’t no horse or dog goin’ near that of they own free will!”

“Has anyone tried to live here since?” Rastan asked.

“Many has tried, ya see, but none can stay. They start dreamin’…in the night, of _horrible_ things!”

“Has anyone said?” the Doctor asked, but Ammi shook his head no.

“What about the glowing oak trees?”

“Tha’s new. Tha’s only jus’ started.” Rastan sat slightly closer to the Doctor when he realized the man was becoming less eloquent the more he talked.

“About when did it start?”

“Las’ year.”

“And how far did it go then?”

“Only the very…very edges o’ town…” His voice lost its passion, and his eyes glazed over.

“Ammi?” Rastan asked, standing and walking over to him. “Mr. Pierce, are you alright?” The man looked at him as if they had only just met, and hadn’t just spent the past several hours talking.

“Wh-wh….” But he stopped, and Rastan looked at his hands, which seemed much paler than they were before.

“Doctor!” But the Doctor had beaten him to it, standing, walking around the coffee table, and scanning Ammi’s hands with the sonic screwdriver. Ammi didn’t react.

“Don’t touch him!” the Doctor said, and Rastan took two steps back.

Then, Ammi’s lips began to move. “I…told everyone…so they knew…they had ta know…about the water…and the color…the hideous color…and the things it done…and where it be from…where things ain’t as they is here…the people it took…and the animals too…takes everyone, sucks on em…makes em stay…I told em all…and maybe…I’d find…someone who could s-s-s-s-s-s-s…” He stopped speaking, only shuddered and hissed, as the pallor spread over his body and revealed itself to be grey, the same sort of ash grey that covered that one patch of land, where nothing had grown back and where the edges were prey. He wasted away in front of them, turning grey before their eyes. Rastan took another half-step back, unable to do much but stare. Ammi was able to break out of his hissing at the last moments, but he still struggled to form words. Rastan would believe his tongue were falling apart inside his mouth, but didn’t dare check to be certain. “S-s-s-s-st-st-st-st-st-stop…stop…the color…Doctor…” Then he collapsed in his chair, his body caving into a pile of dust.

Rastan turned and burst through the front door, holding back his hair and retching onto the old man’s front lawn.


	4. Chapter Four

“He was dying,” the Doctor said after a long moment of shared silence. Rastan looked up at him. “The whole time he spoke to us, he was dying.”

“Was there anything we could’ve done?” Rastan asked, but the Doctor shook his head. Rastan nodded, showing his understanding. “The way he died…I’ve only seen Weeping Angels do that, when they were exceptionally starving.” The Doctor glanced at him. By then they were standing at the edge of what was dubbed the blasted heath by the local population.

“Forty-four years, at an inch per year. That’s forty-four inches,” the Doctor said. “Three feet eight inches.” Rastan frowned in confusion, unsure what had brought this on in the Doctor, or if he was always like this.

“Doctor…a man just _died_!”

“It happens a lot. And you heard what he said as he did. He wants us to stop this thing. That requires figuring out what it is. Now, the stronger it gets, it seems the faster it spreads. At this rate it will blight the earth by twenty-twenty, and the human race will end.”

“…In order for me to exist…we have to stop this nonsense.”

“Now you’re catching on. Come on.” The Doctor turned at the edge of the heath, and against all logic and reason, stepped onto the dust. He moved precisely three feet eight inches before coming to a stop again. “This,” he called to Rastan, “is the original boundary of the blasted heath. By the time this thing was done with the Gardner family, this was the approximate area it had destroyed, in terms of vegetation and other organic life.”

“Why organic?” Rastan called back. He was still uncertain about going anywhere near anything to do with that monstrosity, but he was with the Doctor now. And besides, he wasn’t a total stranger to alien life.

“Great question! See, this is why I like you!”

“You don’t know, do you.”

“No, not yet. Though, I would guess, it’s to do with adenosine triphosphate.”

“ATP?”

“Yep.” Rastan took a deep breath for bravery and stepped over the threshold to join the Doctor. Their footsteps were undisturbed in the ash-like dust. It seemed nothing disturbed this great expanse.

“The other options,” the Doctor continued, “are heat, light in some cases, or this creature consumes organic compounds, stripping them away and leaving behind, well, everything else.”

“Is it abstract?” Rastan asked, as if that were a key distinction he needed to make before moving forward.

“No idea. For all I know it just needs mitochondria or DNA or something and takes the rest out of spite or because it can.” Once again, Rastan couldn’t put this past an alien life form.

“So what do we do?”

“We wait.”

***

“Waiting” involved grabbing some sandwiches from the TARDIS’s kitchen, along with beverages, and camping the night out at the terrifying patch of land. They sat on a blanket, eating and watching the stars appear overhead. The Doctor pointed out a few where he’d had interesting adventures, and Rastan recognized a few others from stories he had been told as a child. The dust was glowing, of course, a kind of haunting luminescence that neither of them could identify. “I thought you’d at least recognize the color,” Rastan pointed out before taking a bite out of his sandwich. “You being an alien and all.”

“Oh, I haven’t seen everything,” the Doctor replied with a slight chuckle. “And of the things I have seen, I don’t know everything about them.”

“Yeah? The way you act says otherwise.”

“Well I sure hope so. Otherwise I wouldn’t do half of what I’ve been able to over the years.”

“You were talking about them, yeah? Just now?” The Doctor hummed, so Rastan clarified: “The Angels.”

“I’ve had several run-ins with them, yeah.”

“But everything I tell you about them amazes you.”

“You understand them, on their level. All your life you’ve been washed in their culture, their…their lives. You could hear it all from the day you were born.”

“You assumed they had culture.”

“You said they had tribes.”

“Good point. But they do. Have a culture, I mean. They’ve got several. The ones I grew up around, their highest respect is blunt honesty, and their lowest disrespect is psychic control. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t care about your autonomy at all and I will manipulate you like a plaything.’ That’s just one example.”

“So their cult?”

“A long game to toy with humans. Half of it is Angel-play, or what a normal person might think of as trolling. They’re seeing just how much they can get away with before the humans all lose faith and leave.”

“Then you had to come along.”

Rastan laughed. “And they think I’m a prophet!” They shared a laugh over this, before Rastan sighed a little and stared out over the plains and the glowing heath. The color seemed to be as bright as it was going to get, and the sky was filled with stars. The Milky Way streaked all over the sky like a soft, languid trail on which one could tour the universe. There was no moon, leaving them with just the starlight and the phosphorescence to guide them. The Doctor wiped his mouth off on the paper that had wrapped his sandwich, and they tossed all their trash into the picnic basket (which he assured Rastan was just that).

“Right then,” the Doctor said as he stood. Rastan was a few moments behind him, but hesitated when the Doctor just stepped onto the heath without a second thought. He took a deep breath and followed the Doctor, wondering what wading through this swath of light would feel like. It didn’t feel like much of anything. Even so, as soon as he stood near the Doctor, he clung to the man’s side. It was the safest place in the universe. “The well is right up here, at the center of all this,” he was saying. “Where it all began.”

They walked through the dust, their footprints still undisturbed, as well as the prints from earlier that day. Rastan looked around at the heath, spotting all the details now on eye level. He saw the well, and the stone remains of the chimney where the Gardner house had once stood. “Doctor, you must be mad,” Rastan said in hushed tones finally. “This…thing…eats organic matter and leaves the rest as grey dust. What if it does that to us?”

“It takes a long time for it to consume a human. Everything about this creature takes time. It seems to live on a geologic timescale.”

“But you said it moves faster the stronger it gets.”

“I said it ‘seems’ that way. I’m not entirely sure.”

“So…what are we doing, exactly?”

“Investigating. Looking for clues.”

“Looking for what, exactly?”

“I don’t know, something. Anything.”

_That was helpful._ Rastan frowned and studied the color around him as he and the Doctor moved closer and closer to the center of the disaster zone. “Nothing grew back,” he said. “Not a thing in forty-four years. Tell me, are there any bacteria?”

The Doctor stopped suddenly. “Of course!” he said, whipping out the sonic screwdriver and scanning the surrounding soil. “No bacteria, no molds, not even a virus,” he added after a moment.

“So it doesn’t matter to the creature _what_ kind of organic matter it consumes.”

“Good, that’s good.” He continued on, and Rastan kept at his heels, looking for something else. The Doctor continued to think aloud about what kind of creature this could be. “It eats all forms of organic matter but leaves the inorganic stuff to become dust. It also seems to sap energy from people’s brains, driving them mad. Perhaps it’s telepathic, or can sense brainwaves…”

“So we’re talking about a possibly sentient omnivorous color from the edges of the universe?”

“Yes!”

Rastan couldn’t help but stop then. “God, you have gone mad.”

“Oh, I went mad a long time ago. I’m the madman with the box.” The Doctor grinned at him and continued on toward the well. Rastan could swear the color was brighter there than anywhere else, certainly at the edges of the heath.

“Well, I’m no madman with a box, or even a college degree, but I’ve got a good feeling that whatever it is, it’s coming from there.” He pointed toward the well, and they picked up the pace toward it. They found the crater where the meteor had struck the earth, and the well was close by. The Doctor scanned it with the sonic device, while Rastan studied the crater. The Doctor bent over the edge of the well and called, “Hello? Hello?!” Only his own voice echoed back.

“I hoped it had a voice,” he said, somewhat disappointed as he stood back and watched Rastan.

“Maybe it does, just one we can’t hear,” Rastan replied, standing. He looked at the bottom of the crater again. “Seems like it moved, from the crater to the well water.”

“So it prefers an aqueous environment.”

Rastan shook his head. “Remember what Ammi said? It spread to things that didn’t _touch_ the well water, and to things that were established structures, like the old house. I think it’s airborne.” There was a light in the Doctor’s eyes, and he grinned in the starlight and the color. Rastan almost wretched at the sight. “What?” he asked.

“You’re clever!” the Doctor replied, and he walked right back to the edge of the heath again. Rastan ran to follow him. “Wait here!” the Doctor called back.

_What?!_ “Where’re you going?”

“The TARDIS! I need vials! Stay here!”

“WHAT?!” The Doctor was running now, and he gave no answer. A heavy ball settled in Rastan’s stomach as he looked around at his sickly, disturbing surroundings. He looked up at the once-comforting stars and found them cold. Well, he decided, he certainly wasn’t going to stand in the middle of a germ or germs from outer space that would burn up all his organic matter and reduce him to dust. He turned and started toward the blanket outside the edges of the heath. At least that was safer than standing in the center of ground zero.

But when he looked, he saw an image standing at the edge of the heath. He blinked and almost reached up to rub his eyes, but he didn’t want to risk contaminating them. In the starlight and the phosphorescence, the image looked like an Angel, her delicate hands over her face. He felt no resonance, however. Rastan swallowed. _It’s OK. Wait a few seconds and it will be. It’ll be an Angel, standing right there, and I can talk to her and we can keep each other company and…_

He realized in his mental ramblings that this was never going to happen. The image was only a projection, and nothing more. But why? He swallowed again and took a few steps toward it. “What are you?” he asked loudly. His voice wavered; so much for trying to sound confident. The Angel didn’t answer him. Instead, before his eyes, it fell in on itself, a pile of dust. Rastan ran toward the pile, snapped out of his confusion and stupor suddenly at the thought that an Angel just might have been killed by something.

Then he reached the edge of the heath, where the Angel stood, and there was no pile of dust. He felt frantically at the grass, but it was all just grass, and whatever that obscene brittle stuff was. He scrambled far away from the heath, reaching the far edge of the blanket when the Doctor returned with the vials. “Are you alright?” the Doctor asked, and Rastan looked up at him.

“I…” his voice was raspy, though he had no idea why. “There was…”

“There was what?” the Doctor knelt next to him. “Rastan, this is important.”

“I saw an Angel,” he said finally, shakily. “At the edge of the heath, there. And then she crumbled to dust. But there’s no dust…” The Doctor walked over to the spot and scanned it.

“There’s a residual energy,” he said, straightening and studying the readings. “The color triggered a hallucination, but your mind is full of Angels. What else was it going to make you see? It might’ve become an Angel proper, if not for the energy being sucked out of it. Under the stone, are Angels organic?”

“S-sometimes?” The Doctor nodded, and then he turned back to the heath. Rastan scrambled further away. He’d seen quite enough of that thing to last him the rest of his life.


	5. Chapter Five

The Doctor concluded his scan of Rastan just as the young man woke from sleep. “You actually slept well,” he noted. “Balanced breathing, heartbeat, melatonin levels, et cetera.” He walked over to his desk, and Rastan followed him with his eyes.

“What happened to me?” he asked. “Am I…?”

“No. You’re fine. We both are. Besides that little incident, the color didn’t affect us at all last night.”

“Still, we probably shouldn’t stay.”

“We’ll solve the mystery, find a way to stop it, and take right off. Promise.” Rastan nodded.

“Did you find anything?”

“The usual carbonates and phosphates, but there are still traces of organic matter near the very edges of the heath that aren’t present anywhere else.”

“Did you find anything about what the color itself is?”

“Well, I think the color _is_ the organism.”

“We walked in creature last night?”

“Simply put, yes.”

“And the oak tree?”

“Covered by an…offshoot, a pseudopodia from the original.”

“So it’s like an amoeba?”

“Something like that, but made entirely out of energy, and possibly quantum based.”

Rastan nodded. “Question,” he said after a moment.

“Yes?”

“How come it made me hallucinate when you’re the one who’s barking?”

“You’re human, despite your genetic quirks. I’m not human.”

He nodded again. “Alien immunity?”

“Something like that.”

“What…are you, exactly? What…kind of alien? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Oh, not at all. I’m a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey. It used to be in the constellation Kasterborous, but it was displaced at the end of the Last Great Time War, effectively ending the war. Now the planet hides out at the end of time itself.”

“Why?”

The Doctor looked at Rastan steadily, with tired, heavy eyes and a hint of anger, but not at Rastan himself. “My people fought a race called the Daleks, for ultimate supremacy over time and space. And they say that he who fights monsters must ensure he does not become one. The Time Lords became monsters in turn, worse than the Daleks would ever be. They created such disgusting, terrible creatures just to fight them. The whole universe is afraid of them now.”

“So they hide at the edge of time.” The Doctor nodded. “So where does that leave every other race in the universe?”

“I’m one of the only ones capable of or willing to interfere.”

Rastan nodded. “So you ponce about in your ship and save people, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Alone?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes with a companion.” Rastan nodded again. “Usually they’re jealous at first.”

“To be honest, you’re not really my type.”

The Doctor laughed. “I suppose so,” he said. Rastan smiled at him.

“So what do we do now?”

“Hmm?”

“About the color. Space germ. Thing.”

“Oh, that. Well, I’m not sure.”

“You know we can’t let it keep eating the earth.” Rastan sat up slowly. “Simply because I value my continued existence and would like not to disappear. I’m sure you’ve got people you wouldn’t want erased, either.” The Doctor nodded as confirmation. “Are we sure it’s a disease and not some kind of sentient…abomination?” The Doctor frowned. Rastan leaned on the edge of the bed and watched him. “What if it thinks? What if it reasons and solves problems? What if it chooses how it consumes organic life? The Weeping Angels do it all the time. Sometimes they send you back, sometimes they break your neck, and sometimes…” Rastan’s eyes widened.

“What?” the Doctor asked, sitting up and straightening.

“Sometimes they do what that thing does, turns people to dust. Just…much faster.”

The Doctor stared at him. “Weeping Angels only consume energy, not directly organic compounds.”

“Maybe a relative?” He shrugged. “Distant evolutionary cousin?”

“Ooo, perhaps. It clearly lacks the limitations of a Weeping Angel, and the only similarity is in method of feeding, and that’s only one, but I believe it.” He stood and started pacing. Rastan watched him over his shoulder as he spoke. “Some kind of angliform perhaps, or maybe it’s like a bacteria that picked up the method from the Angels long before people recorded time, certainly.”

“Whose record of time?”

“The Time Lords’, most likely.”

Rastan assessed this. The Angels had their own ideas of time, that they had been recording before Gallifrey was even thought of by the universal matrix. Of course, for Angels time was far from nonlinear and some species even knew what they were going to do before they did it. They were ultimate fixed points, and many envied their freer brothers and sisters. In the end, he chose to say nothing. “So this creature, our working theory is that it’s some kind of distant evolutionary cousin of the Weeping Angels, but that leaves us no closer to neutralizing it,” he summarized instead.

“Well, in my defense, I don’t know how to neutralize Weeping Angels, either, besides a couple of parlour tricks with mirrors and getting them to look at each other. And…dropping them in a crack in space-time that erased them from existence.”

“So, escaping them, then.”

“Yes.”

“Next time scratch on the back of the ear or between the wings. Stops them instantly.”

“Really?”

He smiled. “Yeah. They’re like cats. Sort of.”

“Like cats? I thought you said lions and gazelles.”

“Lions are cats, aren’t they? And have you ever seen a cat play with a groundhog?”

“Good points, both of them. Now, this creature, this color…what do we do with it?”

“If it’s a germ we can spray it with disinfectant, right?”

“Good, yes we can, but if it’s not a germ, then, well, I’m not sure.”

“If it’s sentient we could communicate with it.”

“In theory. If it’s got a language no one can understand, not even the TARDIS, then communication is impossible.”

“Even if we could ask it what it wants what if you don’t like the answer?”

“Why would I not like the answer?”

“It’s…eating planet Earth?” Rastan said as if it were obvious. The Doctor, for as great as he was, was awfully thick sometimes.

“Ah, yes. But if it just wants to go home like it’s fellow then surely we could help it.”

“At the risk of either ourselves or our TARDIS.”

“Good p—our TARDIS?”

“Your TARDIS. I’m just along for the ride.”

“No it’s fine. Just be careful if you let her hear that. She’s fussy.”

“Fussy? A fussy time machine?”

“Well…a fussy…everything.”

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“Well…”

Rastan grinned. “I’m taking that as a yes. Still don’t want to compromise her, though.”

“Good. Neither do I.”

“So we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, then.”

“We are…” the Doctor said, as he sank on the edge of the other bed. Rastan shifted his position and regarded him evenly.

“One of us may be incapacitated by that thing somehow, so it’s best we establish now what to do in such an event.”

“Where did you learn to be this clever?”

“I raised myself.”

“…Very well. If I’m the one incapacitated, odds are good you’ll choose me over that thing, after all you’ve got no reason to trust it. Do what you need to do to get me out.”

Rastan nodded. “And if I’m the one down…” He stopped.

“What?”

“I was about to say ‘leave me for dead’.”

The Doctor shook his head. “I would never do that.”

“So it seems that’s settled. Save each other?”

“Seems that way.”


	6. Chapter Six

Georgie was relieved to be sent into town, hidden far away from that monstrous thing that haunted his nightmares and waking thoughts. It soothed him to interact with other, normal people who pointedly insisted on not talking about the very thing that haunted them all. He ran some errands for his family: dropping off the post, picking up a newspaper and some fresh produce, still untainted; and afterward he was on the way back home when he spotted the newcomers. It was hard to miss them, and the whole town was talking about them. He couldn’t help but ran up to them, and the older man knelt and grinned at him. “Hello,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Georgie,” he replied. “Master Georgie Cromwell.” He held out his hand, and the older man shook it.

“Hello, Georgie. I’m the Doctor. This, is my apprentice Rastan.”

“You’s them newcomers everyone keeps talkin’ ‘bout, that’s interested in the color.”

“Yes, we are. What do you know about it?”

“Nuthin’, sirs, I’m ‘fraid. I know it haunts them trees, every night. Horrible sight, ya see. Horrible.”

The Doctor nodded. “I’ve heard. The oaks are too big, and glow in the dark, right?” Georgie nodded. “And their branches stretch up to the sky.” He nodded again.

“Can you stop it?” he asked. “You’s from a college, right? Ya must know how.”

“I’m doing my best. My friend here is a really great help.” Rastan smiled bashfully and waved. “Has anyone else died of mysterious circumstances, that you know of?”

“Since them Gardner folk?” Georgie shook his head. “Mr. Pierce was the first since them strange days. I fear I may be next, sir.”

“Why’s that?”

“It haunts me, sir. The color haunts me. I’m ‘fraid it’s gon’ t’ take me in the night one night, crumble me up…” He shook his head as the thought scared him.

“It’s alright,” the Doctor said, resting his hands gently on the boy’s shoulders. “I’m gonna stop it.” Georgie nodded.

“Maybe I can help?” he offered, just as the Doctor meant to stand. “Even if it’s just ta hold stuff. I’m old ‘nough t’ work.”

“I’m sure you are,” the Doctor said as he stood, and he waved for Georgie to come along.

***

“So, tell me about the nightmares everyone has,” he said as they walked. Rastan stayed notably silent, especially on this subject. Georgie looked between the two, before fixing on the Doctor.

“No one talks about ‘em,” Georgie replied. “But everyone has ‘em. I see the color, and farthest reaches of space. It must be, there’s stars and colors everywhere.”

“Nebulae.”

“Do you know about space, sir?”

“I know about a lot of things.”

“You is a college man,” he said with a grin. “But I always see it out there, and ‘t reminds me my nature. That’s the scary part, ev’ry time I die out there. My chest bursts open and I just…float there.”

“And you see all of this?” Georgie nodded. The Doctor stopped then, and Rastan looked at him and frowned slightly. “I think I know where it’s from,” he said suddenly.

“Sir?”

Rastan stepped over to the boy and bent over. “He’s from outer space,” he said. “He’s an alien. Like the color but nicer, and doesn’t need to eat people for energy.”

“How d’ you know?”

“Because I know other aliens. They look like statues but only when you see them. They’re the Angels of the Old Testament, representatives of its God. They’re terrifying and brutal and…so beautiful. Disguised as innocent statues.” He squatted as he spoke. “If you meet one it will scare the living daylights out of you, I guarantee that much.” Georgie regarded him, but said nothing. Rastan nodded and stood again. “It’s a big universe out there.”

The Doctor gestured for Rastan to step aside with him, for a private word. “What do you think?” Rastan asked.

“I think it’s from the Zephyrus Nebula.”

“The what?”

“It’s an expanse of colors borne about by interstellar winds, hence the name.”

“How is there wind in space?”

“Long story.”

Rastan merely nodded. “And…what happens if we get it home?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

“There’s a lot that I don’t know.” Rastan frowned a little. “Point is, I think you’re right about it being an angliform. A very specific _kind_ of angliform.”

“What kind?”

“The amorphous blob kind.”

“So observing it doesn’t work.”

“Exactly.”

“So what do we do, exactly?”

“Still don’t know.”

Rastan nodded and looked at Georgie, who was watching them curiously, as if wondering what they were talking about. “It’s about to wipe a whole town off the map in the immediate future, and then use that to go for the whole county. That boy is afraid for his life.”

“I’m aware, thank you!”

“We need an answer.”

“I’m aware of that, too.”

“So I’m asking you, what the hell do we do?”

The Doctor walked a few paces away from Rastan, one hand on his hip while he rubbed his face. Rastan realized he had no idea what he was doing, so he turned to the boy and squatted next to him again. “My friend here hasn’t encountered this before,” he explained. “It’s obvious I haven’t, since I’m so young, but this is outside his usual field, you see?” Georgie nodded to show understanding. “But I promise, we’re trying to find the best answer.” Georgie regarded him, as if confused by the situation at large.

“What if it hurts you?”

“Well it probably might. In that case…If you can, write to Bohemia. There’s a little village there, called Cetyně. Write there, to a woman called Veronika Novakova.” The boy frowned, so Rastan spelled everything for him. “Write to her, tell her you met Rastan Jovanich, and tell her what I did. Hell, even if I survive, write to her.”

“Sir, what if I can’? What if I forget?”

“I’ll remind you.”

“You sound like yer about ta die.”

“I just might be.” He clapped Georgie’s shoulders and stood, walking over to the Doctor. “Another night of investigating?” he asked.

The Doctor said nothing for a moment before asking, “Veronika Novakova?”

“My mother. She was sent back to 1836 Bohemia by one of the Angels.”


	7. Chapter Seven

Rastan sat with Georgie at the edge of the heath, keeping an arm wrapped firmly and securely around him. He’d been resistant to go this far, fearing the thing there would try to kill him, especially after all he’d seen. Rastan merely said, “I’ll notify your family if anything happens,” and glared at the Doctor in response to any of his promises of survival.

“Do you seriously think you win every fight with everyone in the universe?” he’d snapped, and the Doctor fell silent.

Now, they watched him walk either bravely or obliviously into the heath, waving his sonic screwdriver around at everything and anything. “Now, we’re dealing with a force that compels people to stay in order to feed off them, because just trying to feed off them would cause them to fight or run off,” he said loudly so they could hear him.

“Is it to do with the reservoir?” Georgie called back, and the Doctor stopped and walked back to the edge of the heath.

“Reservoir?” he asked.

Georgie nodded. “They says some men ‘re gonna build a reservoir here, flood the whole place out.”

Rastan blanched. “It contaminates water pretty quickly, that would be a disaster.”

“Where did the idea of the reservoir come from?” the Doctor asked, but neither Rastan nor Georgie could answer.

“Sanders Brothers and Company,” he said after a moment. “They gon’ do it, build a reservoir here.”

The Doctor sighed. “Why is it always a company?”

Rastan watched him. “They sent a surveyor, the townspeople said. But he fled and resigned his post. So they need a new surveyor.” The Doctor looked at him.

“That means there have been surveyors before, and perhaps even the brothers themselves,” he said. “They came here, and it planted the idea in their head to build a reservoir over this specific spot, giving this creature something to taint and spreading it a lot more quickly than it is now.”

“Sirs, I…I don’t understand,” Georgie said.

“Imagine a disease, like…polio,” Rastan said, and the Doctor nodded. “Except it can think, like you or me. That’s what we’re dealing with.” Georgie stared.

“It’s from space?” he finally asked, and Rastan and the Doctor both nodded in response. “What else is in space?”

“Things like that statue I told you about.”

“A bunch of other things, too,” the Doctor added. “All sorts of beautiful, strange, exotic life forms with their own cultures, histories, languages, everything. The universe is a great, big, wonderful place, Georgie.”

“Will I get to see it?”

They looked at each other, as if considering this. “Possibly,” the Doctor finally said. “First things first.” He turned back to the well and fiddled a bit with his sonic screwdriver before scanning the light again. The light was now noticeable, and Georgie shuddered, leaning back and watching in terror. Rastan inched back, bringing Georgie with him.

“It scares me, too,” he reassured the boy.

“Will he make it?”

“I hope so. He’s my ride.” Rastan chuckled at his own joke, though he doubted Georgie would make much sense of it. He hoped his lighthearted tone was enough to lighten the mood a little and ease the boy’s mind. The boy seemed unchanged by Rastan’s quip, so Rastan merely stared at the Doctor and wondered what he was doing with his sonic screwdriver.

Then Rastan saw another apparition; manifesting between himself and the Doctor was…the Doctor, made of the color and approaching him, grinning. “Georgie, run!” Rastan yelled as he scrambled back. Georgie took off like a shot, running back toward town. Rastan continued to scramble until he gave up, flat on his ass. “Doctor!”

The Doctor, the real one, turned around and watched Rastan, and then he pointed and flicked his sonic at the space between the two of them, a point Rastan was focused on like his life depended on it. He wondered what Rastan feared. “You there!” the Doctor yelled, his voice cutting through the darkness and stillness like butter. “I don’t know why you’re targeting my companion or what you want from him, but I can guess, and I will stop you! That’s what I do! That’s my job! I’m the man who stops the monsters. You killed the Gardner family, you killed Ammi Pierce, and you will kill this whole planet! Show yourself!”

Then the Doctor saw it too, an image of himself in, well…living color. It turned to face him, and Rastan tentatively stood, but he dared not approach. The Doctor lowered the sonic device and stared down his adversary, noticing somewhat absently that everything else had stopped glowing and the trees had stopped moving. “Evil smile, very original,” he said sardonically. In response, the image dropped the smile at once. “What do you want?”

“Left…here,” the image said, as if the words were laborious for him. He didn’t have a form capable of speech before, the Doctor guessed.

“On purpose or on accident?”

“Purpose…Doctor…always…purpose.”

“Why?”

“Feed…”

“So you’re meant to kill this whole planet.” The apparition said nothing, which was all the answer the Doctor needed. “Well now you’ve made yourself an enemy of mine. But you’re a color. Besides, I’ll do what I always do.” He pocketed the sonic.

“What?”

“Offer mercy.”

“Mercy?”

“I can get you off this planet, where you can’t harm anyone else.”

“What…do you…want?”

“Well, if I’m being honest, for this planet and these people to be left the bloody hell alone. This is my world, just as much as it is theirs, and I protect it! I defend it! So choose! Either I take you home, or I disperse you, atomize you until you can’t hurt anyone else ever again!” He whipped out the sonic again. Rastan took a step back, realizing this man could go from one hundred to zero and back again in a flash.

“You…can’t…”

“Then take the compromise I’m offering you. Because I will damned well try if it means I can protect this planet.” He pressed a button, and the sonic screwdriver began to hum and glow. “Those are your options. Take the compromise or take the risk.” The being paused, shimmering in the night as if its form threatened to collapse.

The figure turned and lunged for Rastan, who stumbled back a few steps. The sonic screwdriver’s pitch increased, and the figure stopped. “Don’t you bloody dare!” The form itself had frozen, though it didn’t appear to be of its own free will. “Last chance! You get a ride on my ship to your home, or I disperse you. Pick one!”

In the blink of an eye the form straightened again and turned to face the Doctor. “I…will…come back…”

“No you won’t.”

The form said nothing. Rastan wondered if this was what the man did, what life traveling with the Doctor would be like: hop about from planet to planet saving people in danger from this, that, or the other thing, and try not to die in the process. He took a moment to ask himself, then and there, if he was sure he was up for it. The truth was he didn’t have an answer right then.

The Doctor continued. “You’ll find another planet, another collection of organic life forms to suck the life right out of, to turn to dust in your own way. To _feed_ yourself.” He approached the form. “Take my offer, or don’t.” He pressed a button on the sonic screwdriver and it hummed loudly, and slightly off-pitch. “Just leave the Earth alone.”

Rastan scrambled to his feet as the form regarded the Doctor. “I suppose I should mention, though, that if you try to eat my ship, she’ll kill you,” the Doctor said. The form regarded him, cocking its head slightly. The Doctor licked his lips slightly but watched with a straight face and level shoulders. “So, last chance. What do you say?”


	8. Chapter Eight

Rastan clung to the railing around the console station until his knuckles were white. The color creature had decided that getting off-world was a lot more important than sustenance at that point, and Rastan picked up the distinct impression that it was a young child or otherwise related to the creature that had left forty-four years prior. It clung to the outside of the TARDIS in a cloud, and the TARDIS spun wildly as if trying to dislodge it, or discourage it from feasting on her organic components. Rastan, now deeply ship-sick, couldn’t blame her. The Doctor piloted his ship as coolly as he could manage, though she wasn’t quite cooperating with him. His expression, at least, was the definition of calm, cool and collected. “Zephyrus Nebula incoming!” he announced at one point. Rastan pulled himself over to the screen and studied the data from the outside world. Much of it was Greek to him, and would probably have been Greek to the Greeks, but one item he kind of understood. He hoped it meant signs of life.

The TARDIS lurched and slowed down drastically, and Rastan waited until he was sure he could steady himself. The readings on the screen seemed less out of control, so he took it to mean that the creature had dislodged itself from the TARDIS, or she felt she was finally able to fling him off. The Doctor straightened and pressed buttons on the console, and the ship changed direction. “You alright?” he asked Rastan, who nodded weakly. His nausea had at least started to settle. “There’s a bathroom down that way and on your immediate left,” he added, pointing in a direction just opposite to the door.

“Thanks,” Rastan replied. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The Doctor hummed a little and returned his attention to the console. “Where to next?” he asked.

Rastan shrugged a little, giving a noncommittal answer and walking over to the front door, opening it gently and kind of expecting a decompression event. No such thing happened. The Doctor had said something about shields, correct? He leaned on the side of the door and stared out over the void. The Zephyrus Nebula was a marvelous expanse that reminded him of the Northern Lights; colors moved about in and over each other, interweaving and combining and spawning smaller blobs of colors in a slow dance. If he were an artist, he would’ve considered it something impressionistic. If that was the right word. The creatures seemed to be the nebula, and if Rastan squinted he could see the winds that the Doctor had mentioned. “Doctor?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Yes?”

“How did one of these creatures end up in an asteroid?”

The Doctor looked up, somewhere between mildly concerned and afraid. He walked over to where Rastan stood and stared intently at him, and Rastan turned to face him, arms folded across his chest as he leaned on the doorframe again. “Say that again?” he said quietly.

“How did one of these creatures end up in an asteroid?”

“That’s it…”

“Doctor?” He turned and raced over to the controls. “Doctor!”

“These creatures don’t hitch rides on asteroids,” he said as he pressed buttons and pulled levers. “They certainly don’t hide themselves in the middle of asteroids made of rock that responds to oxygen and decomposes. Rock doesn’t do that.”

“That’s the color breaking out?” Rastan asked, stepping away from the door and letting it close behind him.

“Yes.”

“And all its efforts to go home…all their efforts to go home…”

“One of these creatures was stolen and displaced.”

“By whom?”

He pulled a lever, and the engine kicked in with that familiar wheezing noise. When it stopped, the Doctor looked at him and said, “Stay in here.” Rastan nodded mutely.

***

The Doctor stepped onto a cold rocky mass and scanned around with his sonic screwdriver. It scanned around, and he assessed his environment. “Silicone-based atmosphere, heavy on the nitrogen, just like Earth…” he said quietly, looking around at the desolate-looking landscape. He scanned the rocks, and found that they were recognized by the sonic. Trace amounts had lingered in the soil at the Gardner farm. “When combined with a member of the Zephyrus Nebula, you react to oxygen, don’t you. Oxygen and glass. Silicone. The two of you are mutually toxic, but colors take a long time to die. You don’t. What are you…?” He spun in a slow circle, though the atmosphere was starting to make him a little bit heady. Then he brought the sonic up to his face, and realized he was looking directly at the TARDIS. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up, and he turned around slowly.

There was nothing there.

He walked briskly back to the TARDIS and stepped inside, and only then did he allow himself a deep breath.

“What’s out there?” Rastan asked.

“No idea. But something. I’m sure of it.”

“What if I went out there?”

“You’ll need a space suit.”

“Alright.”

***

Rastan stepped out in a bright orange space suit, but it did little to impede the hum he felt through his shoes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, patching into the hum and wondering if it was anything he was familiar with. It…still felt like humming, but there was something else, notes of an old familiar melody strung together in an unfamiliar pattern. The sound was old, and its maker may have lapsed into madness, because it kept repeating over and over. He tried to translate it in his mind, but he lacked the vocabulary to make sense of it. He whistled along, but that didn’t help.

Perhaps, he thought, this individual was truly mad.

Or, alternatively, this was another creature that produced sound the way an Angel did, but not in a way he immediately understood.

He turned and walked back to the TARDIS, with nothing to report to the Doctor.


	9. Epilogue

_Dear Mrs. Novakova,_

_My name is Georgie Cromwell. I don’t know you, but a man named Rastan Jovanich told me to write to you. I’m sorry this is so sloppy, and if you can’t read English. This is my first ever letter, and I never met anybody outside of Arkham. I hope this letter finds you well._

_Sincerely,_

_Master Georgie Cromwell_

***

_Dear Georgie,_

_Thank you for your kind letter, and yes, I can read English. I don’t know how my son has reached you, but I thank the Angels for it immensely. May they watch over you as they watch over him, and do keep in touch with me. I’ve lost all contact with other members of my family, and the neighbors here think I’m rather strange, so I have few friends._

_Love,_   
_Viktoria_

***

Outside, the snow settled thickly over the forest, blanketing every tree and every roof. She had been unable to open either door for several days, and has resorted to a hatch in the roof and a ladder in order to retrieve firewood. Viktoria now watched the flames, listening to the crackle and hiss of the bark and the sap still within the logs. The wind blew around the house, whistling as it did. She had never known this in England, in the twenty-third century, but now it was commonplace to her.

Near her front door, she noted as she looked out the window, a snow-covered statue of an angel stood watch, covering her face with her hands.


End file.
